


Of Candidacies and Car Trouble

by anythingbutplatonic



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: 4x02, F/M, Missing Scene, The Candidate, episode reaction fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-15
Updated: 2015-10-15
Packaged: 2018-04-26 13:23:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5006392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anythingbutplatonic/pseuds/anythingbutplatonic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Felicity let her hand drop from his cheek, to smooth down the creases in the fabric of his pyjama shirt, and when she spoke again, her voice was impossibly soft. “I don’t want you to regret biting off more than you can chew with this Mayoral candidacy on top of everything else.” </p>
<p>Episode reaction/missing scene fic for 4x02 "The Candidate".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Candidacies and Car Trouble

 “So Mayor, huh?”

 Felicity rolled over so that she was facing him, propping her chin on her hand. Her expression was curious, her tone nonchalant - but Oliver knew better than to take those things at face value. He’d seen the look on her face when he’d told her. She hadn’t been pleased.

Oliver decided it was best to get straight to the point. “You don’t like the idea.” 

Felicity sighed, rubbing at her cheek with her palm. Without her glasses, she squinted a little in the light from the lamp on the nightstand. “I never said that.”

He reached for her waist, wrapping his hand around her hip and coaxing her closer. She scooted across the mattress, close enough that the ends of her hair tickled his collarbone. “You didn’t have to.”

Felicity’s mouth turned down at the corners, her expression immediately apologetic. “I’m sorry,” she groaned. “I know how hopeful you are that you can save the city in a different way, and I love you for it, but I’m just - I can’t pretend like this doesn’t worry me.  You understand why, right?”

“Because the last three Mayors have all been murdered, and so was my mother when she was a candidate. Yeah, I know. But Felicity, I’m not like those others, not even my mom. I can protect myself.”

Felicity shook her head. “It’s not just that,” she said, cupping Oliver’s cheek gently, rubbing her thumb across his cheekbone with a feather-light strokes. “Though I am terrified that you might be number four on the list of Star City Mayors who died while in office, I’m not just worried about you getting hurt, or worse. I’m worried about  _you_. I’m worried that you might be taking on too much at once, that you might get so wrapped up in being this new person you’re always talking about wanting to be that you forget that you don’t have to jump into everything headfirst. Not anymore. Not now that you have me.” 

Felicity let her hand drop from his cheek, to smooth down the creases in the fabric of his pyjama shirt, and when she spoke again, her voice was impossibly soft. “I don’t want you to regret biting off more than you can chew with this Mayoral candidacy on top of everything else.” 

She didn’t specify, but Oliver knew exactly what she meant with “everything else”. Things with John were...tense, to say the least. Laurel was off on her own agenda that made anxiety gnaw at the pit of his stomach, though he wasn’t entirely sure why. And then there was Thea, unsuccessfully trying to fight off the after-effects of the Pit while simultaneously denying that there was anything wrong. 

Being the Green Arrow had its perks. But it also had its downfalls. 

“Felicity,” he said steadily, tightening his grip on her hip, “you don’t have to worry about me. I promise.”

“Just because you say it, doesn’t mean I won’t,” she pointed out by way of reply. “But okay. I accept your promise, future Mayor Queen.”

At that, Oliver grinned. “Sounds kinda awesome, doesn’t it?”

Felicity couldn’t help but smile back. His excitement, his hopefulness, it was infectious. “It kinda does,” she agreed. 

Oliver closed the gap between them and swallowed up her smile with a deep, slow kiss, his hand moving from her hip to her waist, fingers sliding under her tank top to expose the skin of her side and stomach. He splayed his palm wide just under her breast, his fingers molding to the shape of her ribs, and she gasped and arched into him, wrapping her arms around his neck. 

But she didn’t have enough freedom to move this way, and so broke the kiss to unwind her arms and throw one leg over his, using it as leverage to push herself up and over him, bracing her hands on the pillow on either side of his head. When he tried to reach for the waistband of her pyjama shorts, she playfully smacked his hands away, biting her lip as she surveyed him spread out beneath her, his face now alight with a different kind of hope. 

Felicity sat back on her haunches, straddling his waist. She pinched the hem of his shirt between her fingers, the nails painted a bright, cheerful aquamarine. “You need to take this off.”

 She had barely finished speaking before Oliver obeyed her command, moving to lift his shirt up and off with practiced movements, far too graceful for a man of his size but graceful nonetheless. He’d pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it carelessly over the edge of the bed before Felicity turned her gaze to his bare chest and froze.

She inhaled sharply, her eyes going wide as she took in the bluish-purplish bruises that spread down Oliver’s side like paint splotches, the scrapes across his ribs that she hadn’t noticed before, even through the thin material of his shirt. 

“It’s not a big deal,” Oliver said, when he saw where her gaze had fallen. “It’s not even that painful.”

“Oliver,” Felicity said slowly, swallowing around a dry throat, “where did you get these bruises?”

He grimaced. “I...may have been hit by a car.”

Felicity choked on air; she spluttered, eyes comically round, before regaining her voice to half-shout in shock, “ _May have_?!”

“Maybe it was a little more than ‘may have’,” Oliver admitted sheepishly. 

Felicity pinched the bridge of her nose with two fingers, breathing deeply. “And why did you not tell me about this?”

“It was  _nothing_. I was trying to chase down Machin and I ended up following him into an alley. I didn’t see the car coming, and it was barely a hit. Most of the impact was deflected when I came off the windshield.” 

“You played human ping-pong off the windshield of a car and you  _didn’t tell me_?” Felicity exclaimed, her voice suddenly risen to a higher pitch than was normal. “What if you’d broken a rib, or a leg, or had a concussion? Would you have told me then? Or would I have had to wait till you came home with half your body in a cast?”

“Felicity-”

“No!” she huffed, crossing her arms in front of her. “I’m very mad at you right now, Oliver Queen. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about this!”

Oliver’s half-grimace, half-smile faded somewhat. He twisted to reach for his fallen shirt, caught on the edge of the mattress. “I guess I should put this back on?”

“No, keep it off,” Felicity said, climbing off of him and re-adjusting her rucked-up tank top. “I’m getting you some cream for those bruises, and then we’re going to have a talk about your concept of road safety, because it is fundamentally  _flawed_.”

Oliver wasn’t about to argue; he simply waited patiently while she clattered around the bathroom, muttering crossly to herself about recklessness and hoping he made a dent in the hood of the jackass’s car, and that she was going to have strong words with the road safety department as soon as she was done telling him off some more, and for what felt like the thousandth time, wondered how the hell he had got so lucky.


End file.
